Cape Town’s MannaBay Hotel – Elegance at it’s Best

A modern 3-story building with lots of glass beckons you to the entrance of the MannaBay Hotel. Once inside you are offered a spectacular view of both Table Mountain and the city of Cape Town.

An open atrium allows for the 3 levels to be open and airy. There is an elevator if you don’t want to take the stairs. Their mission is that they are dedicated to optimizing every guest’s experience – nothing is too much trouble.

MannaBay Hotel is all 1 building and it is just stunning both from the inside and the outside. They are building a second property just down the road that should be completed by end of this year. This would give them 6 additional rooms – there are currently 8 rooms at MannaBay.

Each room has a theme and I stayed in the Pom Pom Room, a premiere room with a private plunge pool, garden area and loungers. The king size bed has luxury linens and brand new pillows. The bathroom is quite large with a very large shower. There was a “welcome board” with my name and sweet treats on the desk when I checked in. Their rooms are run off of a mini iPad that is provided to the guests. There are hundreds of movies and television shows to watch on the large HDTV located in the room. The theme of my room was Pom Pom – wallpaper, pillows, chairs all carried the theme. This room is on the 1st floor.

While they don’t serve dinner, they do serve high tea every day from 3:30-5:30pm and it is included in the room rate. Each evening they offer 4 sweet and 4 savory items along with champagne, tea and spirits. I have never seen a lemon meringue pie so tall! All items are cooked/baked on-site with their open kitchen. The butler did offer to make me a cheese tray to take to my room after high tea but I was quite full so declined his offer.

Breakfast is served starting at 7am in dining room that overlooks the city skyline and harbor. I had gotten up early as I had a plane to catch that morning so I got to see the sun rise over the city and Table Mountain – breathtaking. I had the dining area to myself and sat next to the window. I was served a fresh cappuccino by the butler and then helped myself to the beautiful continental breakfast. Not knowing how long my flight delay would be that day, I opted for a hot breakfast — sausage, bacon, fried eggs with mushrooms, tomatoes and rocket prepared in the open kitchen. The freshly squeezed juice was a nice compliment to my meal.

MannaBay has a nice pool along with a raised seating area with a fire pit, a koi pond, an exercise room as well as loungers around the pool. There are several inviting seating areas outside as well.

The days leading up to my stay here whenever I would mention I was staying at MannaBay, the person would light up with delight — and now I know why. This is an amazing property with so much to offer, I could have stayed here for a week. It has set the bar for contemporary luxury with the furnishings, artwork, special touches in each of the themed rooms. I asked the General Manager when I arrived if they had a laundry service, to which he stated they usually send it out overnight for the next day. Since he knew I had an early departure, he took my items and they were washed and dried by staff on-site and returned to me within a couple of hours — at no charge to me. This level of service is what I am always looking for in a property. I would highly recommend this property and keep my eye on the new property for availability later this year too.